Fire arms, particularly hand-held fire arms are conventionally aimed by aligning a front sight with a rear sight and pointing the front sight to the target point. The term “short range”, as used herein, includes ranges which are up to about 30 m for pistols and about 50 m for other types of firearms. By “target” is meant the object or person that the shooter intends to hit, and by “target point” is meant the point of the target at which the shooter aims the projectile.
Generally the projectiles may hit any point within an area about the target point, but if the shooting is good, said area will be limited. When the front and the rear sight are aligned, they define a line that will be called “the aim line”, and when said aim line passes through the shooter's aiming eye, the axis of the fire arm barrel should be directed to the target point.
The conventional system of aiming involves certain inherent errors: a) the aim line is spaced by a few millimeters from the barrel axis, whereby the point of impact of the projectile, assuming that there are no other errors, will be equally spaced from the point at which the shooter aimed (this may be called “the parallax error”; b) an attempted compensation of the resulting error by structuring the sights so as to slant the aim line slightly towards to the barrel axis, is effective only if the target is located at the distance at which the aim line and the barrel axis meet, and if it is not, said error will remain and may even be increased; c) the fire arm's sights mask, to some extent, the target; d) gun users that are not too experienced require some time to aim by aligning the two sights; e) the alignment of the sights is not objective and its accuracy depends on the skill of the gun user.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,315 B1 discloses and claims an aiming apparatus which comprises a first and a second lenticular element, orthogonal to one another, both mounted on the barrel of the gun, wherein the first lenticular element receives a first image when the shooter's aiming eye is in proper alignment with said barrel in elevation and a second image when the shooter's aiming eye is not in proper alignment in elevation, and the second lenticular element receives a third image when the shooter's aiming eye is in proper alignment with said barrel in azimuth and a fourth image when the shooter's aiming eye is not in proper alignment in azimuth. The first and third image are of a first matching color, typically green, and second and fourth image are of a second matching color, typically red. Said apparatus is not fully satisfactory, firstly because it comprises two lenticular elements and is therefore somewhat complicated and costly; secondly, because its user has to rely on the accurate perception of colors that may not be quite distinctive to him and anyway are not easy to distinguish in dark or sharply colored environments; and thirdly, because it requires the user to correct the alignment of the gun barrel by moving it in two orthogonal directions, elevation and azimuth, a requirement which slows down the aiming and renders it uncertain, since a correction in elevation may be accompanied by a displacement in azimuth, and vice versa.
Co-pending patent application No. 155993, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, describes and claims an aiming device for short range guns, which comprises an aiming sight for directing the aim to the target, mounted on the barrel near its forward end, and an angle indicator, for signaling when the aim line is at a predetermined angle, preferably parallel, to the axis of the gun barrel. The angle indicator, which typically comprises two like elements symmetrically positioned about the aiming sight, comprises one or more figures lying on a plane that makes a given angle to the gun barrel axis and some means for determining when the aim line passing from the gun user's eye and the aiming sight makes said given angle to the plane of said figure, or forms with said plane a predetermined, compensation angle. Typically, said figures lie on a plane perpendicular to the axis of the gun barrel and acquire a distinctive appearance when viewed along an aim line perpendicular to said plane.
The said co-pending application also describes and claims an aiming method for short range guns provided with said aiming device, wherein the gun user firstly brings the tip of the aiming sight in the appropriate position with respect to the target point, which can be called a coarse aiming step, and thereafter completes the aiming by gun to by bringing the aim line to a predetermined angle to the axis of the gun barrel while keeping the aiming sight in the said appropriate position, which can be called a fine aiming step.
Types of images or figures forming part of the angle indicator include figures, preferably colored, and which may be transparent, which look deformed in some way from a basic shape when seen at an angle; images which change according to the angle under which they are seen, e.g. by changing color or showing or hiding predetermined shapes or details; and composite figures, including at least two parts of different colors, wherein one part is seen as larger and the other as smaller, depending on the angle at which the figure is seen.
While the aiming device of said co-pending application constitutes an important improvement over the prior art, it still comprises two components—the aiming sight and the angle indicator—and requires two aiming steps—a coarse and a fine one. Because of this, on the one hand, the aiming is not as easy and immediate as might be desired, and subjective errors are not completely eliminated.
It is therefore a purpose of this invention to provide an aiming device for guns, particularly, but not exclusively, short range hand-held guns, for instance pistols and revolvers, that is extremely simple and reliable.
It is another purpose to provide such an aiming device which consists of a single structural element.
It is a further purpose to provide such an aiming device which substantially eliminates subjective errors.
It is a still further purpose to provide such an aiming device which does not define nor require two displacements in two directions to render the aiming line parallel to the gun barrel axis.
It is a still further purpose to provide an aiming method which permits very accurate aiming with extreme rapidity.
It is a still further purpose to provide an aiming method which is completed in a single step.
It is a still further purpose to provide an aiming method which does not require to establish an optical correlation between different structural element, but only requires the observation of a single element.
Other purposes and advantages of the invention will appear as the description proceeds.